Shares digital

A flexible software package can put you in perfect tune with the market

by Nick Sudbury

The secret of a good investment software package is it should be flexible enough to meet the needs of its users. For most applications this means targeting either longer-term investors or the more active shorter-term traders, with one of the few solutions to successfully bridge the divide being ShareScope. Perhaps that is why Shares readers have voted it their top software program for the last six years in a row.

‘The modern investor has a huge range of techniques at his disposal to squeeze as much out of the markets as possible,’ says Tim Clarke, General Manager at Ionic Information. ‘ShareScope gives them everything they need to assess all the opportunities, with full coverage of unit and investment trusts, ETFs and individual shares, together with the fundamental data and technical analysis tools.’

One of the most popular features of the software is its data mining capability, which allows users to quickly scan for shares that meet their specific investment criteria. The technical analysis is also impressive and offers all the major chart types with the flexibility to set both the time interval and the length of data displayed.

‘ShareScope is an all round portfolio management tool that allows people to compare the performance of different funds, identify possible share trades and use technical analysis to improve their timing,’ says Clarke.

A useful and relatively new facility is the ability to add alarms. These can be used to highlight relevant news items and significant price action. For example, an investor who identifies a key support level can draw this on their chart and extend it forward into the future. They can then attach an alarm that will be triggered whenever the price subsequently crosses above or below the line.

Another serious contender for this year’s award is eSignal. The company operates a whole suite of applications including web-based products such as Market-Q and LiveCharts, as well as QuoTrek for handhelds and its flagship desktop system eSignal 10.

‘People want investment software that is reliable, easy to manage, convenient and that provides market research and analysis to determine the best opportunities the market has to offer,’ says Jay Frank, eSignal Product Manager.

The system’s powerful technical analysis tools are clearly presented, allowing users to track trends in the markets, and spot support and resistance levels to help identify overbought and oversold stocks.

‘Creating custom back testing strategies, analysing the results and then paper trading in real-time are all essential tools for traders worldwide,’ says Frank. ‘eSignal provides all these features as well as a multitude of indicators, news and market commentary, there are even weather maps for the agriculture commodity markets.’

The Advanced GET Edition includes some of the best technical analysis scanners in the industry. These search the markets in real-time for stocks poised for a big move. The real beauty of this product though is its charting, innovative dashboard windows and in-built trading strategies including the highly popular Advanced GET Type 1 and 2 set-ups. These are based on Elliot Wave theory with the Type 1 used for buying at the end of a fourth-wave retracement and the Type 2 designed to sell at the end of a fifth-wave rally.

Both applications face tough competition from MetaStock, which is produced by Equis International, a wholly owned subsidiary of Thomson Reuters. This is one of the world’s best-selling technical analysis packages with a well-established and loyal international client base. In fact, such is its widespread popularity the company runs an annual conference specifically for MetaStock users.

MetaStock, like ShareScope and eSignal, is available with either an end-of-day data feed or a real-time link for more active traders. The latest version of the software incorporates nine widely used chart types including: line, bar, candlestick, Point & Figure, kagi and renko. There is also an in-built scanner that can search the market for stocks that meet various technical criteria.

All three applications have in-built scripting languages that allow advanced users to program their own indicators and trading rules. For the non techies there are formula wizards that enable them to achieve the same result without having to write the code from scratch.

Traders who want to use this sort of facility will really appreciate the power of the back testing modules available in eSignal and MetaStock. These allow users to create, test and refine the performance of their custom studies on historic data and thereby optimise the parameters. There is even the flexibility for people to specify their entry and exit signals, order sizes and commissions so as to better understand the likely level of return. The tick and bar replay tool in eSignal is particularly impressive as it allows clients to replay the day’s data on to a chart at an accelerated speed to see exactly how the study behaves.

Best Investor software program

2007 winner:

ShareScope

Also nominated in 2007:

Esignal

Goldline

Meta Stock

ShareScope

Updata